T – 7 days!

So, this time next week, all being well, the Captain will be taxiing to the runway to leave Heathrow en route to Hong Kong – even that feels somewhat surreal! The longest flight I’ve been on before was to Jamaica, but that was only about 10 hours, and we got upgraded to business class, so luxury all the way. Not holding out huge hope for the same treatment from Cathay Pacific, but hey I’ll ask the question!

What’s happened this week?

Honestly? Nowhere close to as much as should have, in fact, things were going a little pear shaped! On Friday, I had a call from HSBC saying my card had been cloned so they’ve cancelled it. After checking out which card would be most cost-effective to use abroad, guess which one was cloned? Yep. So how long to get a new card to me? 7-10 days… clock one is ticking…

On Saturday, I went to find the paper section of my driving licence, so I could get an International DL in Leeds today. Yes, you guessed it; said paper licence wasn’t where it’s supposed to be. As those who know me well will appreciate, this is unheard of! I have the past 2 years’ statements, payslips, and any other ‘potentially important documentation’ carefully filed and stapled together in 6 month batches. In my ‘Car’ file, I have all documents to do with my previous cars (all of them!) and convictions (well, the odd parking ticket 😉 …) but NO paper licence! Having done a speed awareness course *cough* in January, I think I may have accidentally binned it, along with the ‘advice’ booklet I came home with?!

So, I call DVLA to request a new one. No problem, £20 later and there’s a new one on the way.
“It’ll be dispatched on Tuesday…” great! “…by Royal Mail…” nervous “…2nd class post…” noooo! “…so we ask you to allow up to two weeks for it to arrive.” …clock two is ticking…

But it wasn’t all bad – I had periodic texts, emails and calls from the olds, as they made their way to Singapore (visiting the house where mum lived when she was four) then onward to Sydney (from where dad’s text simply read: awesome billabong shop, no room in bag, gutted) – love that from dad; always thinking stash!

I learnt to play ukulele in a random bar in central London – surreal but fun!

And I bought my new toy – Vesper. She is a beautiful Viao notebook, small and light enough to take with me but big enough to watch movies, write blogs and manage my photos and videos. Last time I had a Viao was at O’Connors, and I loved it, so I have high hopes for Vesper 🙂

So, my last week, so much still to do… I’ll post again before I go (and they will get shorter, honestly!) A wise man once told me that advertising more frequently in smaller sizes, is more impactful / memorable than a larger, one-off hit (he may regret that as his inbox fills up with blog update notifications!)